Now I am the leader of very laid back clan we dont mess with politics and don't bot or ebay or care to. We do everything our own and keep to ourselves.
However the botting problem is so blatant they do not care about xp, you cant fight a level 81 toon with level 60 something people. We lose xp it costs us leveling time, they lose xp dont change anything they just bot it back overnight.
Thankfully this is changing a little in ct2 with rest xp but right now its like why do I bother to level if someone who bots will always beat the honest player?
I am not ****ing NCSoft just asking how other casual players deal with these issues because they are really starting to get to me, since the botters are almost gloating now since their programs got all these bells and whistles now its hard for GMs to actually catch them.
"Its a long way to the top, if you wanna rock and roll"
I can sympathize with ya there Sly. There really just isn't room for lower level/smaller clans to compete PVP wise.
Some of changes to Fortresses might interest your clan though. Those high level clans that have been monopolizing the fortresses can only hold em for like 3 days now. ; )
Yes, it is very, very frustrating, like your at a lvling spot and some noob botter comes along and goes "leave, my spot" and ofcourse...no...thats not how things should be, so you pvp, and you win, and he comes back with "see you in 1 week when im S grade" and then low and behold! One we week later, the [CENSORED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!] is S grade. I really wouldnt care at all if people botted but just you know...kept it on the low down or something, but people go to obvious lvling places where anyone can see them, and then u see them tagged one of the top clans the next week (who ofcourse only recruit 76+). Its insane on franz, theres places you just DONT go, cos u know you wont get mobs or a spot. Theres nearly always a 'protector' around anyway so even if u summon a perma red your gonna get owned anyway. And now when u kill them...they come straight back and just carry on wtf.
The real people who bot openly and then brag about gear and lvls are the bad ones...on franz most of the time if u ask a chinese farmer group to please leave the room for a while in a catacomb, if the guys there they actually leave and sit in the hall until ur done.
Training them gets u Pked/ganked/griefed/trained by already botted up high chars...legits can never 'win' in this game, even HARDCORE legits have a hard time.
And yes, its getting worse, and even more obvious, and yet still nothing is done.
Roll on Tuesday when i hear 'mass bans' will occur...wonder if its true, and if it is, i hopes its not just on Luna (which is infested btw).
but people go to obvious lvling places where anyone can see them, and then u see them tagged one of the top clans the next week (who ofcourse only recruit 76+).
tbh in L2 there is no place that is secure from any one finding you.
Thats part of the goodness that is L2. Also part of the bad.
you'd have to go to like DVC to get away from anyone finding you for a while. mostly cause it is so vast, and there are nook's and crannies where one can hind for a while before being seen.
So I'll disagree with ya, cause your just not right.
there is only 2 times that some one can totally escape someone; rift, Off week when seal status is ninja'd.
I do not play or compete with others. To do that would be a lesson in futility, as you have pointed out. How could I compete with someone who can get back the lost experience in a matter of days, or who can out-grade me in a week or less.
I play with my own sense of honor. I play with my rules, with my integrity. Let the others be ****ed, this is the way I play, and that carries through to my clan. Play legit, or do not play in this clan.
I do not try to keep up with the cheaters. I never would be able to. Hell, I can barely keep up with the other legit folks due to my sporadic play time, now that I'm working.
I do not play or compete with others. To do that would be a lesson in futility, as you have pointed out. How could I compete with someone who can get back the lost experience in a matter of days, or who can out-grade me in a week or less.
And that's pretty much it. If you have any aspirations of you or your clan being anything that matters(no offense, just saying) then that means that you need to compete with people who...well, you're just not going to win that battle if you stay legit and go it alone. If you don't go it alone then you run the risk of incuring the wrath of the enemies of your ally which brings you right back to competing with people you can't possibly compete with.
I never really found what I would consider an acceptable answer to this question so I BS in Vent and play the market to make some scratch which I just end up kicking to clanmates anyway. Hey, my clanmates are fun folks. If paying $15 a month for a chat client is wrong then I'm happily guilty of that. :D
Sure, I could have spent my time since coming back to L2 leveling a toon to 60-something. I just never saw the point though. Even if I did miraculously get a character to 75 what then?
- I can't compete in Olympiad
- I can't use Noble ports
- I'm still not sniffing the level cap of 80, much less 85
- When I did lose exp due to PVP deaths I'd probably just end up backsliding
The long term picture kept me from even trying. I've willed myself to do some crazy [censored] in my life...but competing in the L2 end-game was never going to be one of them. Props to those who have the constitution to do it legitimately, but that won't be me baby.
Just play how you like to play. People will always cheat and there's nothing you can do about it, except inventing a device that kicks people in the [censored] over the internet ;)
I've given up on leveling my archer, it's been 77 since they increased the level cap (2 years or so?).. now I've discovered my play style and don't give a [censored] how others play. Also it helps to be on a quiet server like Lionna.. I'd prolly jump out the window if I played on Bartz or the euro ones, though I'm a euro myself.
not to compete seems to be the way also for me and other few people i know and play this game for long time.
i think bots and ebuyers influence my play only a little. sometimes they make me angry when they take alll rooms in cata. but besides that i dont really care what they do, what lvl or gear they have. unless someone is really ruining my play what havent happend yet.
if a pk kill me i will have my xp back in some time. if every place in cata full, i can wait, or log later, or log the next day. i dont have to be the first nor the best.
we are enjoing the game, and if we would not, we will just leave. but honestly every mmo is the same when it comes to bots an ebuy.
i am pretty sure there is nothing we can change about that, unless it will be profitable for game creators to do it otherwise.
Yeah, its all abit frustating, just situation on my end is a bit better, since I can kill any bot no matter how high their protector are, and I can't say they happy about it, since they do lose % and lvling spot.
But even then, washing away 20-30pk per week is a bit annoying.
Sure, I do report em, but never saw highlvl auto-player to disappered, even if they were totally afk.
Sly, you'd better blame NCsoft. They are able to detect botting players, but don't do [censored] about them. They just let them bot their way up >:( And when you report a bot, you only have to hope that GMs are willingly enough to ban that botter's account, but in most cases these botters will keep playing >:(
The way I handle it, after giving this game a long try and found out that botters are not punished too much? Simple I've turned my back to NCsoft and I'll give Age of Conan a try.
I'm well aware that every game will have cheaters one way or the other, but my hopes are that in other games (AoC for now) GMs are more cooperative towards legit players then here...
All online RPG type games that involve a form of ingame currency are bot infested, make no mistakes about that. Two differences though, 1) most other online games have instanced dungeons where the bots can go hide away from the avarage player's eyes and 2) lineage2 has an extremelly long exp curve, which means lots of people get bored/frustrated and just turn to boting.
All online RPG type games that involve a form of ingame currency are bot infested, make no mistakes about that. Two differences though, 1) most other online games have instanced dungeons where the bots can go hide away from the avarage player's eyes and 2) lineage2 has an extremelly long exp curve, which means lots of people get bored/frustrated and just turn to boting.
You had me right up to the part where you blamed botting on...."boredom"???
Lot's of players bot (I believe real player run bots account for more than 3/4 of all bots in the game) to acquire what they want within the game so that they can have the best stuff and win. That's pretty much it. It's not because they're bored--it's because they are cheating.
As for Sly's OP, it's really really hard to be neutral & casual in L2. Our clan leader (whom you all know) is very good at charting a course through this minefield for us. I've sure never seen any better.
It takes more diplomacy, the right exercising of force, relationship building and a whole lot more to put your clan in a position to pursue it's goals--particularly as your clan starts getting toons toward 70 and begin to run into the real ubers. When you are in your 50's you're pretty much under everyone's radar.
When you're all 67 you are beginning to go to places where you are seen.
I've been in various clans and never seen anyone as good as our CL at charting a course for us.
The fact is that when the ubers "notice you"---you're going to get your [censored] kicked and it's going to hurt, which means some of your members will get frustrated and all the rest. Yup.
Good luck with what you are trying to do--it isn't easy. There have been a LOT of clans of casual players who quit when they can't stand against the ubers. The lower casuals just don't have the mechanisms in place to recover losses like the ubers. Just the way L2 is.
I dont "blame" boting on boredom, I m simply saying that it's out there as an option to people that get bored.
I m saying you have 2 different types of bots in L2. One is the pro botter that runs a train either to sell the adena or to equip his main char, and second beeing the am botter that tries to level his char using the bot.
The first type of botter is prevalent in all online rpgs, dont care if it's called l2 wow or Hello Kitty online. If there's money to be gathered some are gathering it using a bot, the difference is in L2 you see the bots cause they got nowhere to hide, in the other games they are tucked away in an instance somewhere.
The second type of botter is pretty much unique to lineage2 ... I dont particularly care about the psychology behind why people choose to bot :p, I m just saying they do